SuperNova Screen Reader Case Study: MCI WorldCom remains connected.

Dolphin software in call centres.

MCI WorldCom, the large US telecommunications company based in Ashburn, Virginia, recently experienced problems with their latest call centre software at their Austin, Texas call centre. MCI WorldCom has offices in over 65 countries world wide and services over 20 million customers.
MCI WorldCom employs 10 visually impaired and blind people at their Austin call centre, which uses a new Windows ® based telemarketing program called SMART/Call. When evaluating the accessibility of the new software, it was found to be inaccessible for blind and visually impaired staff. After reviewing several products and approaching specialist companies, it was found that only Dolphin’s Hal screen reader was capable of working with the new application. The new application was built with Sybase Powerbuilder, which could not be made to work with any other screen reader. Hal screen reader, from Dolphin Computer Access, provided the ideal solution and ensured that MCI WorldCom were able to retain their existing staff. Gareth Collins, Dolphin’s Technical Support Manager, outlines the problem that faced MCI WorldCom.

“This Hal mapping was for an internally developed piece of software called SMART/Call that's used in the MCI WorldCom call centre in Austin, Texas. This application was created with ‘Sybase Powerbuilder’ and contained a number of "challenging" issues, such as some controls having no keyboard interface at all .i.e. they were mouse-only activated, and also parts of the main data entry screen had a grid layout, i.e. a whole column of edit areas with just one label for the whole column placed at the top. Usually in Windows ® dialog boxes each control only has one label associated with it, and Hal's object labeler by default, associates one label with just one control, and NOT one label with many controls, so by default Hal would not read out the labels of the successive rows in the grid layout because the label was too far away at the top of the column.

This problem meant that unless a solution could be found, the company would not be able to continue employing their 10 blind and visually impaired call centre staff.” Dolphin Computer Access was able to adapt their Hal Screen Reader to work with the SMART/Call software, by mapping Hal to the application required. Dolphin products are more flexible than any other products available and can be adapted by the use of mapping techniques, to most bespoke applications. In many cases the Professional version of Dolphin’s software can be mapped by individual users, following some basic training. Dolphin also offers a mapping service to organisations, that require a quick ready made solution, such as MCI WorldCom.

Brian Rutledge, MCI WorldCom’s Senior LAN Administrator, comments “I have Hal setup on a network with a few ancillary files on the users individual PC's. This allows me to put those local files (which are identical for all the computers running Windows ® ) on all my machines and connect to a server for the Hal screen reader application functionality. I utilise Hal with a proprietary telemarketing application, so special attention was required for this application. Now that some minor mapping has been performed by Dolphin, it is working well for us at MCI. The map files are kept (and backed up) on the server and so it isn’t necessary to load them on all the workstations. Maintenance of Hal is very easy. Lastly, Hal is easy to use and visually impaired people get acclimated with the product very quickly.”

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